Winter weather continues

By Xiomara Levsen | Feb 17, 2014

A power outage not directly caused by the weather left some Alliant Energy customers without power this morning.Twenty-three hundred customers in Washington, Jefferson, and Henry counties were affected according to Ryan Stensland, spokesperson for Alliant Energy. The outage happened about 8:29 a.m. “ITC Midwest has a transmission line in the area, and another line either laid on top of it or sent a transmission through it and the transmission line didn’t recognize it, so it shut itself off,” Stensland said. “They don’t think it’s weather-related at this time.” Some of the affected areas included Brighton, Coppock, Fairfield, Richland, and Wayland, Stensland said. The Journal spoke to Stensland at 9:30 a.m., and he said crews were already out trying to get the power back on.“They’re hoping to have power restored to the affected areas within an hour,” Stensland said. “It’s ITC Midwest’s line, so we’ll go out and offer as much assistance as we can with the process.”Icy and snowy conditions affected the road conditions around the area. According to the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) Highway 22, IA 92, IA 78, and US 218 north and southbound completely covered with snow on their traveler information map.The Journal’s press operator, who travels from Wapello, couldn’t make it into work this morning because of the road conditions.